cabbageboy

Aw, the Big Show is hurt? Here's an idea: job him.

I'll pick them to lose then. Cardinals in 5.

I think the Yankees will win this series in 4, but the Farnsworth aspect is worth noting. I don't think he will cost them this series, but it'll happen in the next round against whomever. Any team that has both A-Rod and Farnsworth is doomed come playoff time.

I say bring back Stevie Ray too. Suckas gotsta know what happened to Stevie. Add him to the King's Court as Queen Sharmell's bodyguard (Duke Stevie?), then bring back Paul Burchill from OVW purgatory and put him with Regal as a tag team. What the hell, UT isn't doing anything useful right now so put him back in the Ministry. I suggested this a while back actually. Wouldn't take much to get Viscera on SD, put Khali in it when he gets back (as in he couldn't put down UT so he joins him), get a couple others. Ministry raises hell on SD, the King's Court is baffled, and the other guys like Batista, Lashley, and Rey unite. You can have those guy put aside their issues with Booker to fend off UT and Co.

I dunno if Harry is the next Orton in terms of milking the 2nd/3rd generation thing. Likely better, since at least people give a shit about his dad and uncle. Let's face it, Bob Orton vanished from mainstream wrestling in about 1987 and there were maybe 5 people who cared.

Yeah I was about to say, the idea of brushing over Smith's background sounds insane to me, not to mention it goes against what they've done in the past. If anything I think Vince might look at Harry Smith as being his biggest prospect in a long time and might want the double hype of "He's the son of Davey Boy Smith, nephew of Bret Hart" and also "He's now dating Brooke Hogan." The connection to Hogan would give him some mark cred, and his background gives him the smark cred.

So wait up. Raw goes from USA to TNN and loses damn near a full point that they never got back. If TNN had the same clearance then how can this be easily explained? Did people simply refuse to watch what was then a yokel station? It should be noted that Russo was not really to blame for stuff like Benoit, Eddie, and Co. leaving. I guess on some level he was responsible for Goldberg's arm injury, but GB himself was kind of a moron for punching through glass. Bret being hurt and retiring can't be blamed on Russo really. Wanting to put the belt on Tank Abbott? That can be blamed on Russo. To some extent I agree with Russo that belts are props, but that doesn't mean they should be disrespected. Russo would have titles change hands so much it was confusing and nothing got over. The title is there to get someone over, but he never gave guys like Booker a chance to get over since he'd job the title off him before he could do anything.

How exactly did WWE misuse Steiner? They gave him a world title feud out of the gate, but he fucked it up so insanely bad at the 03 Rumble that there's no way I'd have ever pushed him again. This stuff about Joe getting buried is so silly. Here is what will likely happen: Joe wins that Monster's Ball. After that he simply challenges the Sting/Jarrett winner (I'm thinking Sting) and then crushes the champ for the belt at the Dec. PPV.

Let's see how I did today, and I'm going by wins/losses here: Arizona at Atlanta: I doubt Atlanta will have two lousy efforts in a row, especially vs. the Cardinals. Falcons by 10. (This one was a no brainer. 1 for 1) Dallas at Tennessee: Titans are one of the worst teams in the league. Dallas should have a reasonably easy win by about 14. (Easier than I thought. 2 for 2) Indianapolis at NY Jets: Jets have been somewhat better than expected but even at home they aren't winning this. Colts by 17. (Man, this was a great game today, surprisingly so. I'll go ahead and say 3 for 3, though this wouldn't have covered the spread) Miami at Houston: Oh God, what is THIS? I'll go along with razazteca and say the Texans pick up their first win in an epic 13-10 affair. (I nailed this one, it was 17-15 Texans. 4 for 4) Minnesota at Buffalo: Bills are actually favored here, but I think the Vikings are the better team. Minnesota will get the road win by 6. (Okay the Bills surprised me today. 4 for 5) New Orleans at Carolina: Saints could really prove something by winning a tough one on the road, but I doubt they will get this one done even though they seem to have the Panthers' number sometimes. Panthers by 7. (Saints played tough today but came up short. 5 for 6) San Diego at Baltimore: One of the better games of the day. Both teams have great defense, but I think the Chargers are better offensively so I'll take them by 7. (Missed this one when the Ravens rallied late. 5 for 7) San Francisco at Kansas City: Hard to see the Chiefs losing two at home this soon. I'll take KC by 4, something like 21-17. (This was actually a big time beatdown. 6 for 8) Detroit at St. Louis: The Rams would have to be ultra jobbers to lose this one at home. STL by 9. (Well the Rams almost did lose it at home, but managed to win it. 7 for 9) Cleveland at Oakland: This has to be a sick joke, right? I'll go with the Browns here, at least in 2 of their losses they have been competitive. Cleveland by 3, something like 10-7. (It ended up being a bit higher scoring than that, result the same. 8 for 10) Jacksonville at Washington: Very interesting game. I'm not sure if the Skins are any good exactly, but I'll take them at home by 3. JAX is perhaps better playing as a pissed off underdog than they are as a favorite. (Skins won it by 6 in the OT. 9 for 11) New England at Cincinnati: I could be wrong but I think this one could get really ugly for Brady and Co. Cincy by 21, something like 31-10. (The one game I was disturbingly WAY off, it was actually the exact opposite as the Pats smacked the Bengals. 9 for 12) Seattle at Chicago: I maintain that Seattle cannot beat a solid opponent on the road (they didn't last year, though no one noticed). Bears will shut them down minus Alexander and win 21-13. (Well, Seattle still can't beat anyone good on the road, and in fact got the shit kicked out of them. 10 for 13)

Miami gets back in your top 25 after beating Houston by 1? Hey, I'll take it...makes U of L look better. Kansas St. getting whipped by Baylor? Not so much.

SS 99 wasn't a bad show I didn't think. Test/Shane and the main event were good enough. I'll go along with Chaosrage and say that 2000 is the most overrated year of wrestling. Hell I'd take 2001 over 2000, despite the botched Invasion angle. The reason that the ratings fell off is that the WWF moved from USA to TNN and TNN back then didn't have as much clearance. 2000 from an aesthetic standpoint just doesn't do it for me. I didn't think HHH was worth a damn back then, so of course I loathed seeing him go over Foley in HIAC. They also botched the WM booking horribly going with the 4 way rather than doing the obvious HHH/Rock match that was demanded. Let's face it, Big Show had no heat and didn't deserve to go over the Rock in any way, shape, or form in 2000. I might also note that I absolutely despised that shitty Road Dog/X-Pac tag team in 2000. They were utter shit and had no heat left by that point and yet were going over nearly everyone in the tag division aside from whoever had the belts. It reeked of blatant backstage politics and favortism. When discussing Russo people say "Oh, Raw's ratings went up when he left." Maybe so, but WCW's were also tanking horribly and several guys got foolishly released by WCW. I'd say some of that rise in ratings was due to people deserting WCW and watching the WWF. By the way, I actually enjoyed the initial Russo "Powers That Be" angle in WCW more than the WWF stuff from Oct.-Nov. 99. I enjoyed that angle in WCW up until they did yet another rehash of the NWO in Dec. 99.

Yeah I agree. If these guys are faces then why is Senshi the heel in any of it? The guy is out there winning matches for the most part clean and doesn't cheat or anything. I really disagree about Joe being like Raven at this point though. Look, anyone with a semblance of a brain knows TNA has to put the title on Joe fairly soon or he really will lose a lot of steam. It's not like he's been jobbing to Jarrett, he's crushed the guy every time they have crossed paths (tag match, non title, etc.).

I wouldn't say any of the WWF PPVs from 1999 were so bad that I felt outraged to see them as a fan. But then again I actually had the misfortune of seeing those WCW PPVs of the same time period like GAB and BATB 99. I dare say ECW was my favorite promotion for most of 1999. To say Russo's WCW run in 2000 drew even less than the Nash stuff, Sullivan stuff, or his own first run is to miss the point. It might have, true. But it's because it came after all of those horrible eras and it had a cumulative effect on the fans. And by the way, Russo's "Powers that Be" era stuff was at least crazed fun, whereas the Nash and Sullivan eras were both just ungodly horrible and even worse...boring. Russo's WCW tenure is like taking the movie Hellzapoppin and putting it in a wrestling ring.

I too can't recall much of anything Pillman did from the Hollywood Blondes until the Loose Cannon gimmick. Watching this made me wonder what could have been if Pillman had lived and got himself healthy. The guy was just a madman, this stuff is still crazy and shocking to watch, especially given it was somewhat Pre Attitude Era (kind of the cusp of it). Imagine the money that could have been made off of Austin/Pillman once Austin had the title. Or maybe Pillman being courted by the Corporation, but being such a crazy loose cannon that Vince can't control him. Maybe a "reunion" of sorts with Austin once Vince gets fed up with his antics and orders a Corporation beatdown, Austin makes the save for his old partner...but can he trust him?

Just because I know how Russo books and because I know how Jarrett wants to be booked, I will make the following prediction for BFG: Angle will turn heel right off the bat and help Jarrett retain the title.

I did find that Demos match odd too but never thought Tenryu or Kitao were jobbers. Since I hadn't seen them before and they were Japanese I assumed they had to be some sort of bad asses to suddenly appear on WM.

Agreed. The original intent in ECW was to have Angle squash a bunch of guys and let him recover, then eventually do the RVD match on a PPV. I guess it was due to him falling apart faster than anticipated, but they then put him vs. RVD on TV and all the house shows. On those house show matches alone we saw: --Angle dropping RVD in a suplex and damn near breaking his neck, then blaming Van Dam for it (which endeared him even more to the ECW crew). --The previously mentioned match where Angle tore up his groin, ripping it off the bone. And tore up his hamstrings. It was an odd matchup to book if you are desperate to keep a guy healthy. Especially if you recall some of the matches they had during the Invasion, when RVD would bust Angle open one night, then Angle would drop RVD on his head in a suplex and accuse him of sandbagging. If I'm WWE I'd almost use TNA's signing of Angle to put RVD over. If Angle had stayed on the sidelines or retired I wouldn't have mentioned it, but now I'd frame it like RVD ran Angle out of ECW.

They could still add Joe to Sting/Jarrett and up the ante even more by keeping the current stips. Sting would have his back against the wall and winning would mean a lot (obviously Jarrett takes the pin). Then Joe can go after Sting and Sting puts him over on the way out.

I don't think this is a publicity stunt...it doesn't really fit T.O. Making fun of Jeff Garcia or calling out McNabb, or his various silly antics...those are publicity stunts. Taking a bunch of pills and possibly trying to commit suicide? Yes, it's a call for attention but it's not a publicity stunt.

Same deal as last week, here are the games for week 3 with predictions and I'm also going to add the spreads this time. 1:00 games: NY Jets at Buffalo (Buffalo by 6). The Bills have been a nice surprise thus far. I'll go with the Bills here at home, by roughly the 6 predicted. Cincinnati at Pittsburgh (Pitt by 3). With Roethlisberger ailing it's tough to know what to expect here, but the Bengals look stronger thus far. Cincy by 7 in a big road win. Jacksonville at Indianapolis (Indy by 9 1/2). The Colts need to end the Jags hype before it gets absurd, and they'll likely do so. They won't cover though. Colts by 7 or so in an ugly 14-7 type game. Tennessee at Miami (Miami by 11). Wow, Dolphins favored by THIS much despite totally sucking thus far? I will take Miami to pick up their first win, but they won't cover here. Miami by 3. Washington at Houston (Washington by 4). Washington might be inept, but that aren't so inept as to lose to the Texans. Skins by 6. Chicago at Minnesota (Chicago by 3). Bears have been stellar against awful teams thus far, but now they have a test. Vikings have won close ones thus far, and for some reason I see them pulling this off by hook or crook. Vikings by 3 (what else?). Carolina at Tampa Bay (Carolina by 3). Matchup of two surprising 0-2 teams. Not sure what Steve Smith's status is, but the Panthers have been less crappy than the Bucs. Simms will toss another 3 INTs as the Panthers win by 10. Green Bay at Detroit (Detroit by 6 1/2). It's like the blind vs. the blind. Favre had trouble winning in Detroit in his prime, can't see him winning now. Lions by 7. 4:00 games: Baltimore at Cleveland (Baltimore by 6 1/2). This will be an ugly game. Ravens continue the beatings and likely injure someone from the Browns. Ravens by 17. St. Louis at Arizona (Arizona by 4 1/2). Kurt Warner vs. his former team! The Rams are a puzzling team, beating Denver and then losing at SF. I'll go with the Cardinals here by 6, but have no real conviction on this one either way. NY Giants at Seattle (Seattle by 3 1/2). Game of the day, 3rd week in a row for the Giants. Seattle got an ultra lame win over NY last year with Feeley's missed FGs. Won't happen again. Giants pick up a big road win as Feeley redeems himself, or at least doesn't suck as bad. Giants by 3. Philadelphia at San Francisco (Philly by 6). It's a tough one to predict since it's hard to gauge the Niners thus far. Can't see the Eagles losing this one though. Philly 28-20. 8:00 game: Denver at New England (NE by 6 1/2). Denver has looked really bad thus far and is lucky to be 1-1. Pats have picked up 2 uninspired wins. Since this is a revenge game for NE I'll take them to humble Jake the Snake and win by 7. MNF: Atlanta at New Orleans (can't find the line yet). Saints are a nice feel good story, but the Falcons are better than them. Atlanta by 10.

I did read the spoilers and I still didn't exactly see an obvious match with Joe at BFG. I saw him get involved in: So what to do with Joe?

Ah crap, I meant to start this thread myself. Anyway here's my predictions with thoughts: Arizona at Atlanta: I doubt Atlanta will have two lousy efforts in a row, especially vs. the Cardinals. Falcons by 10. Dallas at Tennessee: Titans are one of the worst teams in the league. Dallas should have a reasonably easy win by about 14. Indianapolis at NY Jets: Jets have been somewhat better than expected but even at home they aren't winning this. Colts by 17. Miami at Houston: Oh God, what is THIS? I'll go along with razazteca and say the Texans pick up their first win in an epic 13-10 affair. Minnesota at Buffalo: Bills are actually favored here, but I think the Vikings are the better team. Minnesota will get the road win by 6. New Orleans at Carolina: Saints could really prove something by winning a tough one on the road, but I doubt they will get this one done even though they seem to have the Panthers' number sometimes. Panthers by 7. San Diego at Baltimore: One of the better games of the day. Both teams have great defense, but I think the Chargers are better offensively so I'll take them by 7. San Francisco at Kansas City: Hard to see the Chiefs losing two at home this soon. I'll take KC by 4, something like 21-17. Detroit at St. Louis: The Rams would have to be ultra jobbers to lose this one at home. STL by 9. Cleveland at Oakland: This has to be a sick joke, right? I'll go with the Browns here, at least in 2 of their losses they have been competitive. Cleveland by 3, something like 10-7. Jacksonville at Washington: Very interesting game. I'm not sure if the Skins are any good exactly, but I'll take them at home by 3. JAX is perhaps better playing as a pissed off underdog than they are as a favorite. New England at Cincinnati: I could be wrong but I think this one could get really ugly for Brady and Co. Cincy by 21, something like 31-10. Seattle at Chicago: I maintain that Seattle cannot beat a solid opponent on the road (they didn't last year, though no one noticed). Bears will shut them down minus Alexander and win 21-13. Green Bay at Philadelphia: GB finally picked up a win but I can't see them winning in Philly. Eagles by 10.

I thought Holly/RVD did more to get Holly over than anything else in Holly's career has ever done. It's interesting to note how different it can be to use RVD to get guys over. On SD in 2004 they were having Dupree and Suzuki get occasional wins over RVD in lame 5 min. TV matches...did nothing for them, it wasn't believable. Holly goes about 20 mins. in an extreme match with RVD tonight, loses, and got a standing ovation. Just wondering but where was Sabu tonight? Is he just in between feuds? In regards to Booker/Lashley at No Mercy, is Lashley winning exactly a fluke? I mean aside from Booker winning the KOTR tourney finals Lashley has owned him this year.

I actually have some booking in mind for how to do the Big Show/RVD and then Big Show/Hogan matches. Here's what I would do: --Continue the Big Show badmouthing the ECW crew, saying they can't beat him. In the weeks leading up to the PPV he starts throwing up challenges to a bunch of non ECW guys, and mentions Hogan. Maybe have him toss Hogan's name out there a couple of times. --At this point there is a tourney going on for #1 contender. The finals end up being RVD vs. CM Punk in what turns out to be a great contest. Punk has RVD on the ropes several times but makes maybe one mistake, RVD capitalizes on it, 1-2-3. After the match Punk does his bit of offering his hand, only to walk away (the "You got Punk'd" bit I saw in OVW). --Anyway, PPV. A week or so before the show word leaks out that Hogan is sick of Big Show running him down and decides to show up at December to Dismember. Maybe even have Hogan mention the Big Show's taunts on some of his various radio appearances and say stuff like "He needs to worry about RVD right now, but if he keeps running his mouth I'll have to deal with the big dude." Play this on ECW's show. He gets a front row seat natch. --In this match RVD throws everything but the kitchen sink at the Big Show. I'm talking somersault into the 5th row, Van Terminators, Van Daminators, 5 Stars, everything to put this big man down. Of course Heyman and his various goons try to run in (this being Extreme Rules), but the ECW Originals like Sabu, Sandman, Dreamer, etc. run them off. I'd maybe have Hogan beat the shit out of Heyman, maybe one of the riot gear dudes, but not directly get involved with the match itself. --Finally the ECW Originals run everyone off and RVD nails one last 5 Star and gets the pin, possibly using Heyman's hand while he's unconscious. --The ECW Originals celebrate with RVD in the ring as the lockerroom empties. One guy however does not. In a bit straight out of Owen Hart from WM X, CM Punk stands in the entrance just staring at RVD as if to say "That is my belt." Maybe even have Hogan put over RVD a bit, but not to the point where he takes the spotlight himself. --From this point it's easy to segue into RVD/Punk for the title at WM and then Big Show indirectly blames Hogan and that feud begins. In fact I'd just have Show drift back onto Raw at this point and leave ECW, since Hogan showing up on ECW makes no sense on a regular basis. Anyway, that's how I think it should be booked.

That said, tonight I doubt there will be a schmozz finish for RVD/Holly. They actually seemed to listen to my rants over the past few weeks, where I kept asking "Why doesn't RVD just challenge Holly to an extreme rules match and destroy him?" Big Show better be jobbing the belt at the Dec. PPV. It's obvious that he's gonna have to face RVD on that show, and if Show is going to face Hogan at WM (as has been rumored the past few weeks) then he 100% has to job the title there.